On December 6, Sayyid M. Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Human Rights (Located here). He stated the so-called Islamic Charter of Medina drafted in 622 by Muhammad is the fore-runner of the US Constitution. Specifically, Syeed testified: “The essence of Islam can be summarized as those (sic) who protect and promote religious freedom.” (Reported in Brietbart, 12/7/2017)
There are several factual problems with this statement. First, Muhammad was illiterate and could not read or write. Therefore he could not have drafted the document. Second, under Muhammad’s leadership in Medina, his followers battled members of several Jewish tribes, forcing three tribes to flee from Medina, and beheading between 600 and 800 Jewish tribesmen of a fourth tribe in front of their families after the Jewish warriors had surrendered to Muhammad’s forces. So much for religious tolerance. A third problem with Syeed’s testimony concerns his reference to the Qur’an Ch. 2 verse 256, “There is no compulsion in religion” as the basis for his assertion that the Charter of Medina promotes religious freedom. What Syeed fails to tell the subcommittee is that this verse was later abrogated by the final revelations received by Muhammad before he died in 632. Specifically, these can be found in Ch. 9 of the Qur’an and the numerous verses calling for the death of non-believers, to include Christians and Jews. A fourth problem with Syeed’s testimony is that history does not support his statements. For 1400 years jihadists have been attempting to impose Shar’ia law by force against Christians, Jews, and many other religious faiths. And the fifth problem, if Islam is in fact so tolerant of other religions, why are there no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia; why are Coptic Christians under continuous persecution; and why is there an on-going genocide against Christians throughout many Muslim countries in the Middle East?
There are several far-reaching issues with Sayeed’s testimony: first, many in Congress will accept it at face value and will not even consider that he is a representative of a Muslim Brotherhood front group that was labeled an unindicted coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Trial; second, his words will also be used by many apologists who continue to promote multi-culturalism in our society; third, many uninformed pastors and rabbis will seize his statement as ammunition to advance and justify the Tri-Faith Initiative; and finally, liberal academics will now be able to further mislead secondary and college students by saying the Charter of Medina proves that Islam is just as tolerant as other religions, while at the same time these progressives will have new energy to further misrepresent history’s true facts about Islam by continuing to revise our nation’s text books through the mantra of cultural relativism.
